The early kick-off this week saw the meeting of Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur at Old Trafford.
Much had been made of the fact that Harry Kane would miss the game through injury but very little had been said about United being without Pogba, Fellaini, Rojo and Carrick which, collectively, is surely a bigger miss than just one player!
The game itself was a forgettable affair with United in particular guilty of their usual ineptness in possession and displaying their regular propensity for giving the ball back to the opposition far too easily.
Is it just we mere mortals here at WSA or is keeping possession not part of the basics of the training ground?
Formations and tactics become, to an extent, irrelevant when the ball is given away so often. This Manchester United team, however, is defending quite well despite the lack of any great defenders! Eric Bailly is the only one who appears to exude any skill and confidence but, with headless chickens like Jones and Smalling around him, a mistake never looks too far away.
On the flanks, Ashley Young and Antonio Valencia still can’t defend and have no positional sense, but they are getting away with it every week at present. The acid test for these “defenders” should be when they play Chelsea at Stamford Bridge next week.
Still, the game against Tottenham was also a big test which they came through, if not with flying colours, then certainly by the skin of their teeth.
In fairness, United did create more chances than Spurs who only had one Dele Alli attempt in the whole game and looked as though they would be quite pleased with a point.
When the goal that won the game eventually came it was route one stuff. De Gea to Lukaku to Martial and it was in the net.
The win keeps United in second place but has now created a gap of three points between themselves and Spurs.
Now focus turned to the leaders, Manchester City, at West Bromwich Albion.
This game started with Manchester City threatening to continue their quest to reach double figures in goals in every game they play.
They went ahead with a goal from Leroy Sané but West Bromwich Albion obviously hadn’t read the script and had the temerity to equalise within five minutes through Jay Rodriguez. Again within five minutes City were ahead again, this time thanks to a deflected Fernandinho strike.
Half-time arrived with no further change to the scoreboard and it was to be another 20 minutes before City extended their lead.
This time it was a patient move which ended with Sterling, an earlier substitute, tapping in a cross from Walker.
City then proceeded to waste a couple of decent chances to score a fourth and it was West Brom who got the next goal to make it 2-3. Unfortunately this came in the 91st minute and was too late to affect the outcome so Guardiola’s men returned to Manchester with three points.
Over at The Emirates, stubborn old man watched his team fall behind to a goal from Sam Clucas and that was the goal which gave us the score of 0-1 at half-time.
Arsenal managed to turn things around in the second half with goals from Sead Kolasinac and Aaron Ramsey to achieve a result which, yet again, flatters to deceive.
Liverpool and Huddersfield battled out a goalless first half during which there was little to choose between the teams.
Things changed dramatically, however, in the second half and goals from Daniel Sturridge, Roberto Firmino and Georginio Wijnaldum made this a comfortable afternoon for Jürgen Klopp.
The late kick-off, between Bournemouth and Chelsea, gave us the chance to see if the home side had managed to return to Earth following the euphoria of reaching the Carabao Cup quarter finals.
They had, as it turned out, but were still not good enough to take anything from this game.
An Eden Hazard goal midway through the second half was enough to take all three points and it was, overall, a pretty calm evening for the manic Antonio Conte.
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